


Twenty-four Hundred

by Notesfromaclassroom



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Gen, Science Fiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-24
Updated: 2012-09-04
Packaged: 2017-11-12 19:45:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 16,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/494998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Notesfromaclassroom/pseuds/Notesfromaclassroom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A lot can happen in 24 hours...either good or very, very bad.  </p><p>When Spock and McCoy disappear while transporting, the crew scrambles to find and save them as the clock ticks away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Kirk, 1827

**Twenty-four Hundred**

**Disclaimer: I do not own and do not profit—certainly not from** _**Star Trek** _ **, and not from much else, either.**

**Chapter One: Kirk, 1827**

"A written message coming in for you, captain."

Nyota Uhura looks over her shoulder at Jim Kirk, her hand poised above a button on her communications console. With a nod, Kirk toggles on the PADD built into the armrest of his chair.

"I'll take it here," he says, admiring, as he often does, Uhura's practiced efficiency. The message queues up immediately.

It's a note from Sam, now in his first year as the lead botanical researcher on Deneva. Like most letters from his brother, this one is a mixture of mundane details— _we catalogued twelve new fern species this week_ —and the surprising— _This time I think Mom's left Frank for good._ Since Kirk's promotion, he and Sam have written to each other more frequently. _Nothing like a brush with death to make you appreciate family,_ Kirk told him the last time he saw him, a couple of months ago on Earth, right before the _Enterprise_ left on what has turned out to be an extended shakedown cruise.

"From my brother," Kirk says to no one in particular. From his place at the helm, Hikaru Sulu says, "Anything else about that conifer forest? Did the trees turn out to be as old as he suspected?"

Glancing quickly through the rest of Sam's note, Kirk says, "He doesn't mention them. This week he's excited about ferns, apparently. His team has discovered some new ones."

Kirk watches Sulu's eyes light up.

"I'd love to see the specs," the helmsman says, and Kirk grins.

"I'll tell him—"

A sudden lurch nearly throws him from his chair. He sees Sulu grabbing the edge of the console and then, as the ship steadies, sliding his fingers across his control panel.

"Report!"

"We've been hit by a shock wave of some sort!" Sulu says, pressing frantically through several computer readouts. "I can't pinpoint the origin!"

To Sulu's right at the navigator console, ensign Pavel Chekov says, "I'm setting up a particle trace."

"Captain," Uhura calls, "minor damage reported throughout the ship. Ambassador Sarek is on his way to the bridge now."

Almost at once the doors open and Sarek walks in. Suppressing a prickle of irritation, Kirk turns to the crew member at the science station, a young blonde woman named MacInroy. Spock is so rarely absent from the bridge that seeing Lt. MacInroy in his seat is a bit startling.

"Anything?" Kirk asks, and Lt. MacInroy hesitates for a moment before shaking her head and saying, "No, captain. Just that the wave that passed through us also went through the planet."

"There are injuries there."

This from Sarek, who is suddenly at Kirk's elbow. Kirk knows better than to argue or to question how he could know this. Spock told him once in passing that his father's skill as a diplomat has been hard won, that his ability to compromise—or to bring warring parties to the bargaining table—is actually hampered by his relentless logic.

"My mother was the more sensible parent," Spock had said, not without a note of wistfulness in his voice. "My father has trouble...bending."

 _A Vulcan trait?_ Lately Kirk has come to think so. The _Enterprise_ has been parked in orbit above New Vulcan for less than twelve hours and already he's fielded numerous queries from the High Command. Now Ambassador Sarek has been sent aboard—a liaison, according to the Elders, but Kirk can't help but feel he is being watched somehow, or reprimanded for not attending to the colonists fast enough.

Though what more he could do at the moment Kirk isn't sure. Spock and McCoy and several science and medical crew are on the surface, meeting with the Elders, touring the facilities being established.

"Any word from our away team?" he asks, and Uhura presses the transceiver in her ear and says, "The shock wave has knocked our sensors out of alignment. Engineering reports the signal should be reset shortly."

"Keptin," Chekov says, swiveling around in his seat and meeting Kirk's eye, "this is impossible."

"What's impossible?"

"If my calculations are correct, the wave originated more than ten parsecs away. I can't follow the particle trace any further than that."

"Then you must be in error," Sarek says, and Kirk feels another wave of irritation, this time because Spock is not here to help sort through what is happening. Although they haven't been serving together long, Kirk has already come to rely on Spock—not just as a sounding board, but as someone who can keep multiple threads of a problem in mind before weaving together a reasonable explanation.

Banging his fist on the comm button on his chair, Kirk calls to engineering.

"Scotty, I need those sensor arrays up and running already."

"Testing them now, Captain. And the transporter's back online."

Without having to say a word, Kirk glances over at Uhura and she says, " _Enterprise_ to Commander Spock. Report, please."

The screech of static fills the air and Kirk resists the temptation to cover his ears.

"Try again, lieutenant."

" _Enterprise_ to—"

"—need assistance. _Enterprise_ , respond."

"Bones? Where's Spock? Uhura, boost that signal!"

For the first time since the wave hit, Kirk feels his stomach knotting up.

_There are injuries there._

"Dr. McCoy. Can you hear me?"

"Jim, you gotta send someone down now. We're in the medical facility—near the research labs. Some of the walls have collapsed. The power is out, but I can see some people who are hurt. I don't know where Chapel is. She was right here before the quake. The dust is so thick it's hard to breathe-"

"Where's Spock?" Kirk says with a growing sense of alarm. "Is he there with you?"

"The wall," McCoy says hoarsely. "He was caught when it fell. I can't read any life signs under it."

Without looking, Kirk _feels_ Uhura react.

"No!" she says. "He's not dead!"

"Security!" Kirk says, mashing the comm button on his chair. "Locate the research labs at the Vulcan medical center and beam a rescue squad to those coordinates."

Kirk doesn't waste time telling the security chief how to provision the rescue squad. Since before they launched, security has been prepared to respond to almost any situation, any type of emergency, and with the newest and best equipment—an expense Starfleet balked at initially until Admiral Pike intervened, saying he wouldn't sanction sending any more Academy graduates into space unprepared to deal with the worst.

"You will be too late," Sarek says, and Kirk looks into the Vulcan ambassador's dark eyes and knows that if Spock isn't already dead, he will be soon.

"Lieutenant," Kirk says, motioning to Uhura, "do you have a lock on Commander Spock's communicator?"

Uhura's face is a map of grief and sorrow but she answers right away, her voice strong.

"Yes, sir. And Dr. McCoy's as well. I can't identify anyone else's signal."

"Scotty!"

"Aye, Captain, we just sent the rescue team down."

"Uhura's sending you the coordinates for Dr. McCoy and Commander Spock. Beam them aboard now!"

"The transporter coils need a minute to recharge—"

"Beam them up now!"

Scotty doesn't stop to close the connection and Kirk listens to the familiar whine of the transporter start-up sequence.

"Medical team to the transporter room," Kirk hears Uhura say into the intercom.

Her voice is surprisingly steady—and Kirk turns and nods at her initiative.

"Go," he says to her. "Hannity, take communications."

Uhura darts him a grateful look and steps toward the door, followed by Sarek.

"Sulu, take the conn," Kirk says, standing up and heading down the corridor.

As he rounds the entrance to the transporter room, another shudder rocks the ship—not nearly as hard as the first wave, but hard enough to set off the klaxon. Kirk palms the wall intercom.

"Sulu, what the hell is knocking us around?"

"The same sort of shock wave as before," Sulu says, but Kirk hears Chekov pipe up.

"Not a wave but a beam. From farther than ten parsecs away. This one also hit the planet."

Behind him the transporter begins the pulsing noise that precedes particle redistribution and Kirk moves beside Uhura and Sarek at the edge of the pad.

Leaning over the controls, Scotty doesn't look up.

_Not a good sign._

The whine seems higher pitched, louder, less rhythmic than usual. Kirk rubs his palms together and is surprised that they are sweaty.

On the pad he sees two figures coalescing, one standing, the other prone. A clatter at the entrance is the medical team getting in place.

 _Hold on,_ Kirk thinks, watching the figures slowly becoming more solid.

The ground beneath his feet buckles enough to send him reeling backward. Another wave—or beam?

The lights in the transporter room flicker twice.

"Scotty!" Kirk says as the swirling images on the transporter pad dim and fade into nothingness.

"I…I've lost them," Scotty says, looking up. "They're gone."

**A/N: We're off and running!**

**The ancient Greek dramatists were on to something—one of their "rules" about plays was that all the action had to take place within a day. I've never seen the TV series "24," but I understand that the premise was the same—that all of the action took place within 24 hours, and each episode covered one hour of that day. This story won't be 24 chapters long, but it will cover a single day in the life of the** _**Enterprise.** _

**So—this is an experiment that could end up being an epic failure, but nothing ventured, nothing gained. Or so I've heard.**


	2. Sulu, 1150

**Chapter Two: Sulu, 1150**

**Disclaimer: I'm just a visitor here.**

"I..I've lost them."

_Six hours earlier—_

As much as he loves piloting the _Enterprise_ , Hikaru Sulu has a soft spot for the _Galileo_. What the little shuttlecraft lacks in size and speed, it makes up for in finesse. The smallest motion of his finger on the helm control is enough to send the shuttle reeling 30 degrees starboard or port—a fact he discovered once when he was ferrying a recon party to an uninhabited planet. A flick of his thumb sent two crewmembers sprawling on the floor of the shuttle—earning them a reprimand from the captain for not being securely buckled in. Although Captain Kirk said nothing to him directly, Sulu could feel his eyes on the back of his neck the rest of the down way to the planet.

He's treated the shuttlecraft like a high-performance sports car ever since.

Usually his excursions in the shuttlecraft are just that— _excursions_ , pleasurable milk runs when the destination is too far to be reached by transporter.

Or like today, when the transporter is malfunctioning.

Not precisely malfunctioning, because that implies some equipment failure or an accident. Sulu knows for a fact that the transporter has been offline for more than half a shift because Scotty is tinkering—again—with the annular confinement array. Walking past the transporter room on his way back from lunch in the mess hall, Sulu had seen Scotty on his back, spanner in hand, surrounded by bits and pieces that looked for all the world like a large metal jigsaw puzzle.

Stepping into the room, Sulu said, "You know we've been in orbit for two hours."

"Aye," Scotty replied, sitting up. "I'm almost through. If I can narrow the confinement beam, I can extend our range by 10% at least. That ought to make the captain happy."

"He's not going to be too happy when the Vulcans start wondering why our science team hasn't beamed down. You know how the Elders are. They've already called the ship several times with a long list of supplies they want."

"I'm almost done," Scotty said, turning back to the transporter pad and lifting up the edge of one of the floor platings to expose the circuitry. "I'll have everything ready in no time."

But he hadn't. As soon as Sulu returned to the bridge he heard Uhura saying, "The Vulcans are hailing us again, captain."

Something in her voice made Sulu turn and look at her before he sat down. She wasn't even trying to disguise her frown.

_What had happened while he was at lunch?_

The viewscreen flickered to life and Sulu saw the face of the same elderly Vulcan who had greeted them on their arrival.

"Councilor," the captain said, "what can we do for you?"

"Your delay in sending the necessary supplies is cause for concern, captain."

From his seat at the helm, Sulu heard Kirk shift in his seat.

"Sir," Kirk said, "with all due respect, you didn't give us your last list until a few minutes ago. We're working on—"

"34.7 minutes ago," the elderly Vulcan said. Although the Elder's hair was almost completely white and his face tanned and wrinkled, if he didn't look too closely, Sulu could imagine a similarity to his own grandfather.

Except that his grandfather had laughed easily and often, teasing his grandchildren or telling shaggy dog stories that had them in stitches.

Sulu couldn't imagine this Vulcan ever breaking into a smile.

"Ambassador Sarek is waiting at the transport coordinates," the Elder continued. "He will come aboard your ship to help facilitate the supply transfer."

"Our science and medical crew will bring the supplies when they come—"

"Unnecessary," the Vulcan said, and Sulu looked over his shoulder at Kirk.

The captain's eyes were narrowed as he stood up from his chair.

For a moment Sulu was sure Kirk was going to say something, but he sat back down and took a deep breath instead. Then the captain hit a toggle on the arm of the chair and said, "Scotty. Lock onto Ambassador Sarek at the transport site. He's beaming aboard."

"Uh, captain," Scotty said, and Sulu quickly turned back around and looked down at the helm control. Well, he had warned Scotty. Ever since they left on this shakedown cruise, Scotty had been pulling the transporter apart during odd times in his continued quest to extend its range—a project, as the ship scuttlebutt would have it, that had almost cost him his position in Starfleet.

"What is it, Scotty?"

"Captain, the transporter's offline at the moment—"

"Get it online!"

"Uh, sir, I'm afraid that's not possible. The phase converter blew a fuse and I'm having to reroute the power supply."

Before Kirk could say anything, the Vulcan Elder spoke up.

"Captain," he said, "if you are unable to comply—"

"No," Kirk said abruptly. "Please inform the ambassador that we're sending a shuttlecraft for him. Kirk out."

From the corner of his eye, Sulu caught a glimpse of Kirk motioning to Uhura to cut the transmission.

Punching the comm button on his chair, Kirk said, "Bones. Get your team together and meet Mr. Sulu in the shuttle bay immediately. Looks like you're heading down to New Vulcan a little early."

"No can do," McCoy said. "I'm still synthesizing vaccines and loading hypos. It'll be another hour or two before we can leave."

"Dammit!" Kirk said, and Sulu heard McCoy say, "What?"

"Nothing, Bones. Go ahead and finish what you have to do."

Then to Sulu Kirk added, "Take the shuttlecraft and pick up the ambassador. I'm sorry to take you away from your regular duties."

"I don't mind at all, sir," Sulu said, and he didn't. Any chance to scoot the little shuttle around was a welcome diversion.

Or it usually is. Today's _excursion_ isn't so pleasant.

Not that the ambassador is unfriendly, exactly, but every attempt Sulu makes now to engage him in conversation fails completely.

"Your safety harness snaps on the left," Sulu says as Sarek steps over the sill of the shuttle door and settles himself in the front passenger seat.

"I am well acquainted with the parts of a shuttlecraft," Sarek says, smoothing his long embroidered robe into folds.

Beating back a sigh, Sulu begins the start-up sequence and listens to the familiar rev of the engine.

Before he can initialize the thrusters, the shuttle rocks from side to side.

"What—" Sulu begins, but Sarek makes a dismissive motion with his hand.

" _Solektra-hutaya,"_ the ambassador says. "The colony has seen an increase in their frequency recently, though not in intensity. They are of little concern."

"I see," Sulu says, easing the shuttlecraft up from the surface. "I grew up in San Francisco, and after awhile, you really don't feel the earthquakes that much. They just become part of the background noise."

That's true enough, at least for his generation. His mother grew up in Japan and can remember seeing houses tumble during stronger quakes. Improved architectural designs have eliminated most of the danger—though his mother remains a skeptic.

_Is it his imagination, or does the ambassador sit so rigidly that his back doesn't touch the seat?_

Sulu hazards a glance and his finger slips a fraction on the control, dipping the shuttle slightly. The ambassador cuts his eyes over and Sulu feels himself flush.

"So, sir," he says, "do you have many different plant varieties on New Vulcan?"

It's a thinly veiled attempt to cover his embarrassment and Sulu has no doubt Sarek sees through it. Sulu feels the Vulcan's dark eyes boring into him.

"You are the ship's botanist as well as the helmsman?"

"Uh, no," Sulu says, flushing harder. The ambassador's voice is inflectionless, yet Sulu can't shake the feeling that he is mocking him somehow. "I'm just an amateur who likes plants."

"Curious. My interest does not lie in the plant life on the colony, so I am unable to answer your question. However," Sarek adds, "Spock may be able to give you the information you want after he completes his survey today."

"I suppose so," Sulu says with some hesitation. If Scotty doesn't get the transporter working soon, the odds are good that Sulu will have to make several trips back and forth to the colony. He _could_ ask Spock to share the survey results later on the return ride.

Or he can wait to read the results in the ship's public log. Spock might be more approachable than his father, but not by much.

To his surprise, Sarek says, "And you have other interests? In addition to botany?"

 _A personal question from a Vulcan_. _Perhaps he's been too quick to judge these people._

"Martial arts," Sulu says. "And fencing. I've been studying that since I was a child."

"Vulcan children," Sarek says, "also study self-defense. Of course, the Vulcan varieties are far more rigorous than anything humans can do."

_Or maybe he's judged these people the way they should be._

"I see," Sulu says as drily as he can.

The _Enterprise_ looms into view against the black sky and Sulu aims for the shuttle bay. Less than 500 meters from the ship, the shuttle rocks again in the same back and forth motion, gently at first, and then hard enough to set off the alarms.

Scanning the screen, Sulu looks for some explanation—a collision with a speeding micro-particle, a misfiring thruster. Nothing.

And then the shuttle tumbles forward as if swatted by a giant hand, the landing bay speeding up toward them in a dizzying swirl. Frantically Sulu scrambles to adjust the angle of approach by modulating the aft thrusters and the shuttle lands hard but in one piece.

"I'm sorry!"

Sarek is busy unbuckling his safety harness and opening the shuttle door.

He steps out of the shuttle and turns to watch Sulu making his way to the hatch.

"Perhaps," Sarek says, "you should devote the time you spend on plants and fighting to improving your piloting skills."

It's not said unkindly. Indeed, it's not said with any emotion at all.

But when Sulu exits the shuttle and stands upright, he sees Commander Spock waiting in the bay, his expression unmistakable, sympathetic, when he catches Sulu's eye.

**A/N: Please don't throw things! Chapter one started at 1827, but we had to back up a few hours to fill in a few details. From here on out the story will be chronological, I promise! We're hurtling forward.**


	3. Sarek, 1315

**Chapter Three: Sarek, 1315**

**Disclaimer: I sit at a computer and mess around with characters I borrow, and this is what comes out. I make no money from it.**

There it is—the _look_.

As he steps across the shuttle bay, Sarek sees the young helmsman, Sulu, catch Spock's eye. And Spock returns the _look._

Fascinating. When did Spock become so adept at communicating with a glance, something humans do instinctively? Amanda complained often that neither Spock nor Sarek paid sufficient attention to learn human nonverbal communication, but it wasn't a matter of attention. He _had_ tried. Over time he came to recognize that the narrowing or widening of the eyes was important, that the motion of the iris _meant_ something—though he was at a loss to say what.

"You just don't want to know," Amanda accused him more than once.

In that, at least, she was wrong. He does want to know. Being in a room of humans who are talking and simultaneously silently sending signals is like being in a foreign country, unable to speak the language.

And now Spock is communicating something to the helmsman and Sarek doesn't have a clue what.

In moments like these he feels Amanda's absence keenly. Often she had sensed his bafflement at some witticism or innuendo or meaningful glance at a diplomatic banquet and had stepped in, feigning exasperation with him, laughing and placing her hand on the arm of whatever delegate he might have inadvertently offended, trilling off something amusing like "Oh, you mustn't mind my husband! He's teasing you, Vulcan style!"

She would have known what he had done wrong earlier in the shuttlecraft, too—would have soothed what she called the _ruffled feathers_ of the young helmsman. Sarek replays the entirety of their conversation in his mind. Nothing he had said should have been cause for distress, yet Sulu looked flushed twice during the trip and sounded annoyed when Sarek advised him to redirect his attention to improving his piloting skills rather than pursuing botany or fencing as pastimes. The hard landing of the shuttle was proof that Sarek's advice was sound. Why should anyone find valuable advice offensive?

Yet it was, apparently.

Even for Spock, who still bristles when Sarek tries to help him benefit from his own experiences. Not even their shared grief has smoothed all the rough edges of their relationship—and, Sarek admits to himself in private, probably never will.

"I must speak with you," Sarek says to Spock as Sulu exits the shuttle bay ahead of them.

"Of course," Spock says, motioning for his father to lead the way to the corridor. "Though another time might be preferable. The Elders have asked Captain Kirk to send the survey and medical teams down as soon as possible."

"It is of the Elders I wish to speak," Sarek says, and Spock's gait falters a fraction before he stops and turns to his father. Tucking his hands behind his back, he tilts his head and waits.

How to begin? Sarek has debated this since Sotar approached him two days ago.

 _Sometimes you simply have to jump into things._ Amanda's words, said more than once when she became impatient with what she considered Sarek's excessive calculations about a situation.

_Sometimes you simply have to jump into things._

The first time she ever spoke those words, she was not only impatient but angry—at his hesitation about continuing and formalizing a relationship with her. But he was concerned about his career, and hers—concerned about their families and the disapproval he sensed on both sides. And Sybok? How would Amanda feel about helping to raise another woman's child? And if they could have children of their own—should they?

He knew too well the effects of Vulcan prejudice. Would he wish that for anyone else?

In the end, of course, he had _jumped_ , had married Amanda, not only because he loved her, as he told Spock in the transporter room that terrible day months ago, but because he couldn't imagine not having her in his life.

Not having her in his life now is barely imaginable. In the moments between waking and opening his eyes each day, he fails to remember that she is gone.

Then the silence in his mind washes over him and he rises quickly, _jumping_ into whatever work is handy. And these days, work is plenty on New Vulcan.

"They've asked me to approach you," Sarek says, and though he often feels blind to the verbal tics of humans, he understands Spock's body language well. As he expected, his son is wary, irritated.

"Why didn't they speak to me personally?"

Taking a step down the hall, Sarek waits a beat for Spock to follow him before he continues.

"I believe they will," he says, "when you are planetside."

Spock says nothing but Sarek hears his breathing becoming more forced. _Anger?_

"While they respect your decision to remain in Starfleet, they are asking you to reconsider. As you will undoubtedly note when you do your survey, the infrastructure of the colony is behind schedule. Only the medical facility and the main government buildings are complete. The power plant is running at half capacity, and most of the housing is still temporary. Your skills as a scientist are sorely needed."

Sarek hears Spock take a breath—a prelude to a response, no doubt—but he looks up and sees a uniformed crewman approaching from the other end of the corridor. As she passes them, she nods and says, "Commander."

"Ensign Singh," Spock says.

Reaching the turbolift, Sarek watches as Spock presses the call button. To his surprise, he feels a wave of pride in Spock's accomplishments—his easy familiarity with the ship, his crewmates.

Or perhaps what he feels is a reflection of Spock's own feelings vibrating through their family bond. Through the years they've tamped their mental connection into a thin thread, an airy line that sometimes blooms into greater awareness, as it had the day Spock was hurt in a hover bus accident, for instance.

Since Amanda's death Sarek has found himself listening to the faint hum of Spock's mind in his own more often than usual, comforting himself with the only voice left there.

If Spock is aware of his father's occasional gentle mental explorations, he has not said anything about it.

Not that Sarek expects him to.

The lift arrives and both men step in.

"My skills as a scientist are needed in Starfleet," Spock says as the turbolift begins to move.

"Starfleet has many scientists," Sarek says. "You can be replaced there. You cannot be replaced on New Vulcan."

He feels a flash of anger from Spock.

"If you refer to my reproductive responsibility," Spock says so softly that Sarek has to strain to hear him, "one _half_ -Vulcan should be of little interest to the Council."

The turbolift judders to a halt and Spock moves forward.

"Spock."

He doesn't raise his voice, but Sarek knows he doesn't need to. Spock slows and stops and Sarek catches up to him.

"The Elders do not make their request lightly. And neither do I. I am aware that you have a life here—companions…"

He pauses, watching Spock parse his meaning of _companions_.

"Your relationship with Lieutenant Uhura—"

"I do not require your advice about my relationships."

Spock makes as if to walk away, his back ramrod straight, an undisguised frown on his face.

"In this matter, no one else is better able to give it than I am," Sarek says, struggling to keep the note of despair from his voice. "Your mother and I—you surely realize, Spock, that we searched a long time to find a healer who could help us bond properly—"

"Father, the survey team will be signaling shortly," Spock says, interrupting him, taking a step toward the open door of the galley. From inside the room Sarek hears the sound of people eating and chatting, a sudden burst of laughter, the scrape of a chair. "If you wish to eat, you may join us."

_A dismissal dressed as an invitation._

Without looking back, Spock makes his way through the crowded room to where Lieutenant Uhura sits at a small table. As if she senses his approach, she looks up from her salad and smiles. Then her gaze travels past Spock to Sarek, standing in the doorway.

For a moment Sarek wavers. The last time he spoke to the lieutenant was in Spock's apartment, a few days after the _Enterprise_ returned to Earth after the loss of Vulcan. She was furious with him then, angry that Spock had initially agreed to resign his commission, blaming Sarek for pressuring him. The intensity of her anger had startled him, speaking as it did of the depth of her feelings for his son.

And Spock's feelings for her? Spock's ultimate decision not to join the colonists spoke volumes.

Sarek could appeal to her better self—lay out the reasons it makes logical sense for Spock to stay on the colony. Now that the shock has begun to subside and the dire reality of the genocide is being tallied, she might agree, might be willing to set aside her own desires for the good of the many.

He takes one step into the room.

From here he can see the lieutenant with an unobstructed view. With a jolt, he feels such a stab of sorrow that it takes his breath away. Perhaps it is the room full of humans, so reminiscent of numerous gatherings he squired Amanda to in his early days as an ambassador.

Or perhaps it is the lieutenant herself—lithe and dark, her hair pulled away from her high cheekbones, looking nothing like Amanda and yet reminding Sarek of her somehow—that same careful attitude, that some watchful grace.

Her eyes meet his and she gives him a _look_.

Across the room he knows that her eyes, her posture, the knit in her brow all communicate her sadness for him—her sympathy spoken in nameless gestures, her empathy for him reaching out like a tangible thing, brushing his mind, easing his pain.

And then he knows. She and Spock may not be formally bonded, but they share _something_ …

And because of it, she is able to touch him, too.

Her expression is as clear to him as if she were shouting out the words.

So this is the secret of understanding a _look_. This is why Amanda's face was always an open book, even for him.

 _Here is my heart,_ the look says. _Here is my mind_.

He turns and moves back out of the galley. The Elders asked him to speak to Spock; he's discharged that duty. He will not ask Spock to give anything up again.

**A/N: We're getting closer to 18:27—that moment when Spock and McCoy disappear in the transporter room. But first you need to hear from each of them…**


	4. McCoy and Spock, 1742

**Chapter Four: McCoy and Spock, 1742**

**Disclaimer: I own a ten-year-old mini-van. I do not own** _ **Star Trek**_ **.**

"As far as I'm concerned," Leonard McCoy says, "this is a more civilized way to travel than scrambling my molecules all over space. If Scotty wants to break the transporter for good, I wouldn't mind."

Brave words, but McCoy knows it's partly bluff. He does hate trusting a machine to disassemble and reassemble him…but he also hates riding in the shuttlecraft. He's not claustrophobic or acrophobic or any other phobic he knows—but he gets queasy with motion sickness on anything smaller than a Constitution-class starship.

Sulu's a damn good pilot, but right now McCoy wishes the lurches and dips would even out as the shuttle full of staff and equipment makes its way to the surface of New Vulcan.

"What's the hurry?" he calls from his seat behind the pilot. Sulu turns and grins.

"What's the matter, Doctor? Too bumpy for you?"

"If I wanted to ride a horse, I would have stayed at home on my granddaddy's farm," McCoy says, the irritation in his voice not all sham.

To his surprise, Spock looks over at Sulu's controls and says, "You reported similar turbulence on your earlier flight up from the surface. Does it match these readings?"

"So I'm not the only one feeling tossed around!" McCoy says, vindicated. He crosses his arms. Riding shotgun, Spock glances across at Sulu and then back at McCoy.

"Do you need something, Dr. McCoy?"

"A better pilot," he says, and Sulu laughs.

"The turbulence is not the result of faulty piloting," Spock says, turning back around and tapping an indicator on his screen. "As far as I can tell, the atmosphere has been recently bombarded with some sort of energy wave—"

"It was a joke, you idiot!"

He hears Sulu stifle another laugh. To his right, his head nurse, Christine Chapel, sniffs once and makes a point of looking away.

Okay, so that comment _was_ out of line. But Spock has a way of bringing out the worst in him. Back home McCoy's family and friends call him witty, a gentleman. His fellow cadets at the Academy always found him likeable, a go-to kind of buddy.

But around Spock he isn't so much witty as acerbic, not as likeable as he is prickly.

McCoy has an uneasy moment thinking of something Jocelyn once said to him, shortly after their separation and before things got too heated for civil discourse: _"You aren't as charming as you've convinced yourself you are."_

Maybe that's true, or maybe that was just bitterness talking. He isn't sure.

But he doesn't like himself when he makes verbal digs at Spock's expense. If only the Vulcan weren't so damned sure of himself all the time—

—but it's more than that. It's whatever's going on with Uhura.

He prides himself on knowing people well—of seeing through the surface of things to the core of someone—but you could have knocked him over with a feather that terrible day in the transporter room.

There was Jim, bruised and bloody, Chris Pike draped over his shoulder, and Spock gathering his breath on the transporter pad, the medical team rushing forward. Suddenly Uhura was there, too, though later McCoy couldn't remember hearing her paged.

From where he stood directing the medics, McCoy saw what no one else did—Uhura's fingers twining quickly with Spock's and then pulling away reluctantly as Jim led the way to the bridge.

Since then, like everyone else, he's seen the two of them together at meals and in the corridors. Never touching—never doing anything untoward at all.

He's tried not to listen when he overhears the ship's gossip—has resisted saying anything to Jim. After all, it's none of his business.

But the scuttlebutt rings true—that _whatever this is_ began at the Academy, has, in fact, been the source of an official inquiry.

If he wanted to, McCoy could look up the details. That order a few months ago to submit Uhura's medical records to a JAG review—she had assured him it was nothing, that he shouldn't concern himself, and he had taken her at her word and promptly forgotten it.

Until yesterday, when Uhura came to sickbay for a scheduled physical and he looked over her records, startled that Stephen Puri had made a notation there about tailoring an antigen birth control shot for her.

As he always did, McCoy silently cursed the Romulans whenever he ran across Dr. Puri's name in patient notes or journal publications. The doctor had been a gentle presence both at the large Starfleet hospital in San Francisco and the Academy infirmary; that he died violently at the hands of a madman still seemed surreal.

Then McCoy forced himself to read Uhura's file. Two facts jumped out.

The antigen shot was designed to neutralize both human and Vulcan gametes.

_Spock_.

And Dr. Puri had given Uhura the first shot over a year and half ago.

A year and half ago Uhura was a rising fourth year cadet and McCoy was her occasional poker buddy. And Spock—he would have been a professor at the Academy still, unless he had already left to work on the run-up to the launch of the _Enterprise._ Either way, Spock and Uhura were chancing a serious reprimand.

The JAG subpoena. It all made sense now.

A year and a half ago was a lifetime away, back when things like fraternization rules made sense, before half the fleet and almost all of the senior class of cadets were wiped out by Nero.

Now the fleet was scrambling to stitch together enormous patrol sectors with minimal coverage. Despite a wave of recruits after the destruction of Vulcan and the attack on Earth, Starfleet had a skeleton crew, and tours of duty were lengthened, even indefinite. Leave was rare.

So what if Uhura and Spock were…well, whatever they were doing? Technically they were probably breaking some damn fool rule…chain of command and all that, but it seemed unrealistic to pack people off into danger on a starship far from home for long periods of time and not expect _something_ to happen.

They were discreet. They didn't hurt anyone. They were doing their jobs. McCoy could easily imagine Spock ordering Uhura into mortal danger if it were required. He could imagine her going without hesitation.

"Do you want to continue with the same birth control?" he asked at her physical, careful not to look up from his PADD, hoping he sounded more nonchalant than he felt.

"I do," she said, betraying no emotion at all. No shame, no embarrassment.

As she shouldn't, McCoy thought fiercely, suddenly protective of her.

Which is why he's disappointed in himself today on the shuttle ride—slipping up and calling Spock an idiot.

He has to learn to hold his tongue. His emotions will be his undoing.

The shuttle shimmies and shakes all the way to the surface and McCoy breathes a sigh of relief when it lands. Making a point of sounding sincere when he thanks Sulu for the ride, McCoy looks pointedly in Spock's direction.

_See,_ he wants to say. _It was just a joke._

But Spock barely glances at him, seems, in fact, to be distracted.

And no wonder. Approaching the landing area is a group of elderly Vulcans, their long robes almost dragging on the ground. A gray-haired woman at the head of the group raises her hand in that odd split-fingered salute McCoy has tried and failed to learn several times.

"Spock," the Elder says in heavily-accented Standard.

"T'Sai," Spock says.

Neither says anything else and McCoy steps forward, nodding.

"Leonard McCoy, ma'am."

The Elder's eyes flick to him—nothing more—and McCoy feels dismissed. _Well._ Is this how most Vulcans are? Cold and hard to read, harder to reach? Compared to the Elders standing in front of him, Spock is an open book.

"The medical facilities are this way," the Elder says at last, and McCoy leans down to pick up his kit. As he does, he catches a glimpse of Spock's expression—his mouth set in a tight line, his color high.

Anger? Or nervousness?

He feels an uncharacteristic wave of sympathy for the first officer.

Just fifteen minutes ago he wanted to bite his head off.

Maybe he should get Spock to teach him Vulcan meditation when they get back to the ship. It's supposed to be helpful in controlling emotions.

They both could use the practice.

X

If T'Sai is surprised to see him, she doesn't show it. Spock, by contrast, struggles not to show his dismay.

On one hand, he's relieved that she survived the genocide. His _kolinahr_ instructor looks much as she did the last time he saw her, right before he left for Starfleet Academy.

He had traveled to her retreat in the mountains to tell her that he would not undergo the ritual study after all. For months Spock had toyed with the idea of joining the monastery as a novitiate, continuing in a formal way the occasional tutoring he received from T'Sai while he was still in school.

His father, he knew, would be unhappy if he gave up his chance for an appointment to the Vulcan Science Academy—a thought that stayed Spock's hand more than once.

His mother assured him the choice was his to make.

But it wasn't really—or at least, it wasn't fully his to make, not without a serious breach in the family. For generations his family had studied science at the VSA. Naturally Sarek expected his son to do the same.

As he stood before the admissions officers of the Academy Council, Spock listened to the praise of his performance—not unexpected—and felt an odd weight settle in his chest. So this was it, then. His future. He took a breath and waited to accept the Council's recommendation.

And then he felt himself flush almost at the same time as he heard the Councilor's words: _"Despite your disadvantage."_

Of course he knew what the Councilor meant. But he forced him to say it anyway.

" _Your human mother."_

Fury blasted him like a desert storm hurtling across the plain. His skin was on fire, his hands tingled. He expelled with sudden force a breath he didn't realize he was holding.

_Kolinahr_ , indeed. In an instant he knew how foolish that idea had been. What made him think he could ever achieve that sort of control?

The Councilor was right to be suspicious of his human heritage.

A few weeks later Spock headed to Earth.

Not before taking his leave of T'Sai, giving her a tea plant as a thank you for all the hours she had instructed him in meditation. She accepted his news that he was leaving for Starfleet with the same inscrutable expression she always held, neither pleased for him nor dismayed at his decision. He was disappointed.

Spock has no illusions that T'Sai's appearance here today is a coincidence. Obviously his father told the Elders that Spock is resisting their call for action, that he wants to stay in the service and not join the colony rebuilding efforts. No one is more logical than a _kolinahr_ master, and no _kolinahr_ master is more respected than T'Sai. Spock knows he should be honored that she is the one asking him to stay.

Following the Elders to the medical facility, Spock considers his options. He could avoid the conversation by busying himself with the survey team or the medical crew, though doing so merely postpones the inevitable.

He could shorten the conversation by announcing at the outset that his mind is made up, but refusing to hear information goes against his natural inclination.

Or he could listen to T'Sai and consider her offer.

Nothing he can imagine her saying would make him give up his career, give up Nyota.

But he owes her the courtesy of hearing her out. As soon as they enter the medical facility and McCoy and his team start unpacking the supplies they've brought, Spock steps to the side with T'Sai and tells her so.

"A wise decision to listen to your Elders," she says. "Undoubtedly you have good reasons to stay in Starfleet. But you may not know about all of the reasons to leave it."

Tucking his hands behind his back, Spock prepares for T'Sai's speech. She looks up at him with flat black eyes hooded with age and opens her mouth to say something, but before she can, the ground heaves under their feet.

In the distance Spock hears some of the human crew members shout. Fine particles of dust rain down from the ceiling; a loud vibration like an explosion shakes the room. From the corner of his eye, Spock sees the wall buckle and tumble toward him, and he pulls T'Sai out of the way.

Pain and pressure on his shoulders, his back. The lights flutter off and something pins his legs down.

He struggles not to panic as his breaths become shallow. Opening his mouth, he gulps for air and tastes copper.

More shouting, another loud snap. A sharp pain in his side where his heart beats so hard that he feels light-headed.

He's about to die and he knows it.

An image of his mother, falling out of his reach. And another one, of Nyota soon afterwards in a rare moment alone, her hands sliding to his face and they stood in the turbolift, her eyes searching his. His father offering comfort in the quiet of the transporter room _—"I loved her."_ Piloting the Vulcan scout ship into the maw of the _Narada,_ believing he would not return—

Shutting his eyes against the acrid smoke seeping through the room, he settles on a favorite memory—Nyota walking across the commons at the Academy, absorbed in conversation with a student Spock did not know, an Asian woman sporting the severe updo popular among cadets these days. All morning the sky had been gray, the clouds scudding low across the bay, but at the moment that Spock caught sight of the two young women, the sun came out.

For an instant everything glowed. The spring grass, the damp pavement, the red uniforms, Nyota's face—illuminated like a scene in an ancient oil painting. A wistfulness overwhelmed him—some almost-nameless sadness that he stood apart from the tableau—and then Nyota looked up at him directly across the distance, as if she had sensed his budding jealousy for her attention. Her smile and what it conferred on him—he pulls out that image and that emotion now. Nothing extraordinary about the memory, and that, too, is part of its appeal.

She'll grieve, and his father will, too. But they have friends and colleagues and much work to occupy them. Spock takes a measure of comfort in that thought.

A buzzing fills his ears and he opens his eyes. Darkness still, the sound growing louder. _The transporter_. He recognizes the signature whine.

His cheek on the cool floor of the transporter pad of the _Enterprise_ for an instant, garbled noises he identifies as human voices in the background.

And then an electric jolt judders through him. His teeth gnash together and his arms and legs are paralyzed. A transporter malfunction? He barely has time to consider it before his mind snaps shut, like a light going out.

**A/N: Originally I planned to split this chapter into two—one for McCoy and one for Spock—but I shortened them and combined them because I sense some restlessness to "get a move on"! Thanks for being patient and continuing to read. For those of you who take the time to leave a review, you are the spur that keeps me going on this horse!**

**Nyota's visit to the infirmary to get appropriate birth control from Dr. Puri is in Chapter One of "People Will Say."  
**


	5. Scotty, 1828

**Chapter Five: Scotty, 1828**

**Disclaimer: I'm a mere scribbler. I own nothing here.**

"I…I've lost them. They're gone."

The only noises in the transporter room are the overhead air exchange and the hum of the sequencer. For a fraction of a second, Scotty holds his breath and listens.

Then he expels his breath and lets his fingers fly over the console. _They could be caught in the pattern buffer—_

"Scotty, what happened!"

A whirlwind of motion and the captain is at his side, hovering beside his shoulder.

"Get them back! Get them back!"

"I'm trying!" Scotty says, tapping on the buffer indicator. _Nothing._ Spock and McCoy's dematerialized molecules aren't there. He puts both hands on the levers that control the signal resolution and slides them forward _. If he can reverse the field direction and refocus the signal—_

Nothing. Not even an echo of a signal. He looks up at Kirk and shakes his head.

"I can't—"

Startling him, Kirk slams one hand onto the console.

"You _have_ to! You said the transporter was back online."

"It was! It _is_! I don't know why—"

"Then where are they? Answers, Mr. Scott! Don't tell me you don't know!"

Behind him he hears a sharp intake of breath and he glances around quickly, catching Uhura lifting her hand to her mouth as if to stop herself from speaking. The Vulcan ambassador stands near her, almost preternaturally still.

"Captain," Scotty says, "I had them! They were locked in. And then—"

"Two hours ago you had this transporter in pieces," the captain says, his words deliberate. "What did you do?"

"It's not the transporter, Captain! Something grabbed them away—"

"Then find out what. Find out now!"

"Aye, Captain."

"Captain!" The voice on the intercom is Lt. Hannity's. Scotty starts to reach to the comm button on the transporter console but Kirk beats him to it.

"Go ahead."

"Communications coming in from the Vulcan High Command. They're asking for more assistance. Reports of more casualties from that last quake."

"On my way," Kirk says, slapping the button and cutting the connection. "Pull anyone you need from engineering to help you," he says over his shoulder to Scotty.

Scotty doesn't take his eyes off the console but hears the doors open, the captain's footsteps striking the floor in an angry drumbeat out of the room.

Sagging his shoulders, he runs through the possibilities again. _Spock and McCoy aren't trapped in the buffer. The sequencer is online. The signal was strong when he started the procedure—he had seen them start to materialize._

And then—they were gone. Just like that.

 _Could it have been the transporter?_ He was certain he had correctly replaced every conduit, every switch. Was it possible he had misaligned one?

Who's on shift now in engineering? Denny? O'car'i? No, Denny was working earlier today. But O'Car'i is there now. Maybe. Scotty presses the heel of his hand to his brow. _Think, man!_

He toggles the comm open and O'car'i answers immediately.

"Find Denny and report to the transporter room."

"Perhaps you should scan for an energy trace," Sarek says, suddenly in front of him.

"Aye," Scotty says, aware of the misery in his voice. He can't bring himself to meet the ambassador's gaze. "I'll start a sensor sweep."

And then he forces himself to look up. The sleeves of Sarek's thick embroidered robe hang loosely from his shoulders and drape over his hands; since Scotty saw him on the trip from Vulcan several months ago, the ambassador has become thinner, almost gaunt.

"I'm sorry, sir," Scotty says. "We'll find them."

A human would have reacted in some way—anger, perhaps, at what sounds like an empty promise.

Or if he were more empathetic, words of reassurance. _It wasn't your fault_ , a human might say. _I know you are doing your best._

Sarek says nothing, his expression inscrutable.

For a moment they are frozen there—Sarek unable or unwilling to move, Scotty still resting his hands on the transporter controls.

And Uhura, anguished, silent, turned halfway towards the pad as if she is waiting for Spock to reappear.

Against his will, Scotty remembers the day she sent Spock off to the _Narada,_ a scene of such tenderness that even now it causes him pain. What must she have been thinking then? That Spock and Jim Kirk could waltz into the enemy ship and come back unscathed? Had anyone believed it was anything other than a suicide mission?

"Mr. Scott?" she says softly, and he nods in her direction.

"Aye, lass," he says. "We'll bring him back. If he's still alive—"

"He is," she says. Her words unlock whatever is keeping Sarek immobile. He turns and leaves the transporter room, Uhura casting a final look at Scotty before following him out.

"When Denny and O'car'i get here, run a level four diagnostic on every circuit," Scotty says to Ensign Doohan sitting on his right. "I'll be on the bridge."

The corridor between the transporter room and the bridge is crowded but Scotty barely notices. Someone accidentally jostles his shoulder and spins him partly around but he keeps walking forward, his chin tucked to his chest.

 _Could_ it have been the transporter?

Blinking, he mentally re-enacts reassembling each receiver after he had taken the transporter apart earlier. Almost as if he is watching a holovid, he sees himself holding a spanner in his right hand, his left hand free to rotate the safety collar on each conduit. He's _sure_ he put all six back properly.

The modifications, then. Could they have overloaded the power grid? That's one possibility, though not likely. Back at the Academy he and Greg Olson had conducted numerous unsanctioned tests of various configurations of power grids, making bets on when they would overload. A typical late night in the engineering lab meant jury-rigging some piece of equipment and then running currents through it until it blew—the person coming closest to guessing the required number of joules winning a beer at the other's expense. Scotty took great satisfaction in running up Olson's bar tab.

A silly game—even a slightly dangerous one—but it had taught Scotty how far he could stress most pieces of equipment before having them break down. He has, in fact, gotten a reputation for being able to winkle a wee bit more from any engine than most—a talent he attributes to those late-night experiments.

He's almost certain the power grid isn't the problem, but just to make sure, he'll have Denny check it.

Which leaves finding the beam or wave or whatever it was that tore through the ship and disrupted the transporter even more imperative. If he can track where it came from, or where it was going to, he might be able to locate the missing men.

Unless the beam completely scattered their molecules.

If they are still alive.

The captain seems to think they might be. And Uhura. Not just hoping, the way Scotty is willing himself to hope against hope. But genuinely _believing_ , the certainty in her voice rock steady.

He doesn't know Uhura well, or any of the crew outside of engineering, for that matter. He's been too busy these past weeks, too pressed by the ordinary gremlins and glitches that afflict any shakedown cruise.

He's been meaning to remedy that, to start taking more meals in the mess instead of in his office alone. To stop having a drink before bed—at least, not in his cabin, not wolfed down like good scotch never should be, but shared with his mates in the rec room.

Aye, he'll make some changes soon, when things settle down.

Soon he's at the bridge, the doors whoosing open. Only Sulu looks up when he enters. The captain is speaking to the science officer. MacInvail? Why can't he remember? He's spoken to her before, joked that _with a name like that you ought to hail from Aberdeen_ , only to hear her laugh and say _no, North Carolina_.

MacInroy. That's it. He takes a breath and steps to the engineering station behind the helm.

"The Vulcan data stream is coming in now," she says.

With a flick of his finger, he calls the seismic data to his screen. _That can't be right._

Tapping through several screens until he has the _Enterprise's_ sensor array log before him, Scotty feels his mouth drop open.

"Captain," he says, motioning for Kirk to join him at the station.

With one spring, Kirk is up and moving toward him.

"This is the energy signature from the beam that hit the ship when Commander Spock and the doctor were transporting," Scotty says, pointing. "And here is the energy signature from the last earthquake recorded on the surface."

"They're the same."

"Aye. That wasn't an ordinary earthquake. That was the planet being bombarded by some sort of focused energy."

"A weapon?"

"I don't think so. It went through us and didn't do any damage."

"But it knocked down buildings on the colony." Sulu shifts around in his seat at the helm.

"The energy accumulated on the surface," Chekov says. "That's why."

"Exactly," Scotty says. "Because it was focused on one place, it made the ground shake. We were just clipped by a small fraction of what the planet caught."

From the corner of his eye, Scotty sees Kirk starting to pace.

"So you're saying this…beam…or wave….came from someplace else, passed through us, and hit the planet hard enough to cause an earthquake?"

Lt. MacInroy interrupts before Scotty can answer.

"More data from the Vulcan sensors. An orbiting satellite tracked a high-energy beam leaving the planet the same time as the last seismic event."

"I thought you said the beam was coming _toward_ the planet," Kirk says to Scotty. Scotty looks over at MacInroy and she adds, "We recorded the beam heading to the planet. The Vulcans recorded an energy pulse radiating outward from the opposite side of the planet."

"It was the same beam passing through?"

More than once Scotty has marveled at how quickly the young captain makes these kinds of intuitive leaps. He nods his head slowly in Kirk's direction.

"Aye," he says. "I think you're right."

"But how is that possible?" This from Chekov, a frown on his face. "That beam traveled ten parsecs to get here. How could it have enough energy to pass through a planet? It should have dissipated by now."

Scotty feels the hair on the back of his neck start to rise.

An energy beam focused for long distances, powerful enough to pass through a planet?

"Transwarp beaming," he says. Kirk snaps around and stands so straight that he looks like he is coming to attention. "It must have overwritten our transporter signal and pulled the Commander and the doctor with it."

"I don't understand," Sulu says, lifting one hand in the air like a supplicant. "Are you saying—"

"Vulcan scientists have been working on transwarp beaming for decades," Sarek says, startling Scotty. Up until now the ambassador has stood quietly in the background listening to the discussion. "Although it is considered theoretically possible, no successful test has ever been carried out."

"Oh, yes it has," Kirk says, cutting his eyes to Scotty.

He and Kirk have never spoken directly to each other about Delta Vega. The debriefing at Starfleet was clear about that—their silence is required. To protect the privacy of several key Vulcans is the official reason, but Scotty suspects more is at stake—like that tantalizing but incomplete peek at the formula for transwarp beaming.

 _His_ formula, the elderly Vulcan on Delta Vega had told him.

He had not asked for details about who those Vulcans needing privacy were—indeed, had not wanted any—but he remembered doing a double-take the first time he saw Spock on the bridge. The _young_ Vulcan officer.

Of course, things had been a bit rushed then—the mad dash from engineering after almost drowning in the cooling tank, the interrogation from Spock while Scotty stood dripping on the deck of the bridge.

Not to mention what happened a few moments later, with Spock exploding in a whirl of fists and jabs and poor Kirk pinned to the navigation console like some bug in a museum case.

He told himself he was just addled after all that excitement.

"If there's a transporter at the other end of that signal—"

Kirk doesn't finish his sentence. Scotty nods and says, "Then we have a real chance of recovering them."

He sees Kirk's expression brightening, can sense him about to tell Chekov to set a course.

"But captain," he says, "even if that beam is some sort of transwarp signal and not a naturally occurring energy burst, we have to hurry. Transwarp or no, it won't last forever, especially hauling an extra piggy-backed signal."

"How long—"

Scotty looks around the bridge. An electric current seems to hum beneath the surface. Everyone's face is turned toward him, expectant, looking for a miracle.

His heart sinks. He wishes he had one to give.

"Minutes, captain. Maybe less."

**A/N: I apologize for so much technobabble in this chapter! Someday I'd like to slow down and take a look at Scotty's background story…but today we are chasing that blasted beam!**

**If you were able to stick with this story despite that, thanks so much. And if you leave a comment or kudo, I wish for you fair weather and other good things (New shoes? Cupcakes? Chocolate!)**


	6. Chekov, 1832

**Chapter Six: Chekov, 1832**

**Disclaimer: None of these characters are mine, but I freely admit to the mischief they get into.**

He sees numbers.

Not the way his friend Janna sees words, as bright swathes of colors in front of her eyes. Chekov's not a synesthete. So perhaps _sees_ is not the right word. He _knows_ numbers.

As long as he can remember, he's been this way. Glancing at a glass of milk his mother set in front of him on the breakfast table, he would automatically calculate the volume. _0.23568 liters_. At lunch, the student sitting to his left weighed approximately 65.772 kilograms. The distance from his high school to a coffee shop his cousin suggested they try one afternoon, 2.254 kilometers.

He rarely measures anything. He doesn't have to. And after years of hearing him announce the weight or height or volume or distance of the world around him, his family and friends no longer demand any proof. They've checked behind him enough to know he's usually right—or very close.

When he was 12 his primary school teachers talked his reluctant mother into sending him to the math and science boarding school in Nizhny Novgorod, the nearest large city, and he discovered that he wasn't the only student who filtered the world through the lens of mathematics. His roommate taught him tricks that let him calculate faster than a conventional computer. His astrophysics teacher introduced him to stellar cartography, setting him along the path to navigator at Starfleet.

He and his friends often walked along the confluence of the Volga and Oka rivers, known as the _strelka_ , and watched the ships, arguing about whether a career on the sea would be more interesting than a life on a starship. Both had things to recommend them, but Chekov felt the pull to space.

"You'll never get home again," his best friend Peter warned. "And your life will be more confined. No fresh air, stuck with the same crew for months, far from your family. No thank you!"

At one time Chekov might have agreed with him, but for some reason his interest in space was piqued when he found out that Irina Galliulin was applying to Starfleet Academy.

"Why not the Russian Space Institute?" he asked the pretty brunette in his Standard class. It was his least favorite class by far—the tongue-twisting consonants hard to hear and harder to say. Irina found the language almost as difficult as he did, but her perseverance put Chekov to shame.

"Too small," she said. "I don't want to spend my life on local freighters. I want to see the whole universe!"

She laughed as she said it, as if to say that she knew that she was being absurd.

But Chekov didn't laugh, and in a moment she grew serious again and let her fingers drift to his as they wandered along the sandy bank of the _strelka_. When they returned to the school he leaned forward and gave her a chaste kiss at the entrance to her dorm.

Without ever discussing it, they began seeking each other out for meals, taking detours between classes so they could meet in the halls. During the required study hours at night they sat knee to knee in the library carrels, Irina calling out vocabulary words in Standard, Chekov half-heartedly memorizing a few.

The spring that she turned 17, Irina was accepted to the Academy. Still only 16, Chekov took the test a month later—and failed.

"You can try again in three months, Pavel," Irina said, stroking his hair as they huddled in the stone archway of the library during a downpour. "Get your adviser to look over your scores with you—"

Ducking further into the doorway to escape the rain, Chekov said, "I already looked at them. They're good. Better than good."

"Then why—"

"Stupid language exam. It doesn't matter that I speak four languages. Because one of them isn't Standard, Starfleet says no."

"You knew that was a requirement."

"But it's unfair!"

"Even so—" Irina said, beginning to sound irritated. Chekov stepped away from her.

"I thought you were all for breaking the rules," he said, ashamed of the petulance in his voice but unable to stop himself. Irina was always the one sneaking out after curfew, the ringleader of pranks against an unpopular teacher, one of the few students he knew who had actually been disciplined for breaking the dress code.

"Not when it matters," she said, and he realized she was right, that she picked her battles more carefully than he gave her credit for.

Well, he could, too. After she left for San Francisco, he buckled down with a language tutor—for a few weeks.

Until the chess tournament began. Then he spent all his free time working on chess strategy, something he actually enjoyed.

When the chess master chose him and two other students to compete in the Federation Worlds Chess Championship in London, he was glad to have something to focus on rather than the nagging loneliness he felt waiting for Irina's infrequent calls.

For someone whose dream took him to the stars, Chekov had never traveled out of Russia, and London was a revelation. Larger than Nizhny Novgorod and more populous, the city was never silent. For Chekov and the other two Russian students, it offered a chance to evade their chaperones by ducking into all-night pubs and clubs, to rub elbows with English young people who were surprisingly ignorant of all the contributions Russia had made throughout history. The fifth or sixth time he got odd stares while trying to strike up a conversation with someone, he realized that the problem was less about the woeful state of history education in England and more about his fractured Standard.

He fumed silently. Only the excitement of the tournament itself was enough to pull him out of his funk.

And then, during the second day of actual competition, something happened that changed his life.

He had just completed a preliminary elimination match against a much more experienced opponent, dispatching him quickly and handily, when he looked up as he left the stage of the large conference room full of observers and was shocked to see a tall Vulcan standing at the bottom of the steps.

Chekov had never met a Vulcan before. In fact, he had never seen one in person. They tended to be retiring, staying together in Paris or New York at the Vulcan embassies or in the Federation Headquarters.

Aware that his mouth had fallen open, Chekov came to suddenly, meeting the Vulcan's gaze and nodding briefly before starting past. To his astonishment, he heard the man call his name.

Only then did he notice the young woman—Uhura— standing at the Vulcan's side.

The next hour was an astonishing whirl. The Vulcan introduced himself as Commander Spock of Starfleet Academy—had, in fact, graded part of Chekov's entrance exam.

"While not all of your answers were correct, they were, shall we say, imaginative," Commander Spock said.

"The reason I fail," Chekov managed to say, but Spock shook his head.

"Negative. You were denied admission because of concerns about your language skills."

Spock's comment confirmed what he already suspected. He felt his face flush with anger and embarrassment.

"I may have a solution," Spock said, but then he invited Chekov to play several speed rounds of chess with him. It was clearly some sort of test, though Chekov wasn't sure what it was supposed to prove. The Commander beat him in all three games, though by the last game, not by much. It was oddly satisfying to come so close.

Uhura had watched him carefully as they played. _Why was she there?_ The Commander was a grand master—a tournament winner and past judge. His appearance in London was understandable.

But Uhura was still an Academy cadet, and though she seemed interested enough in the matches, she wasn't obsessed with the game, not like most of the people who came to watch the tournament. Later at the pub where they bought him supper, she listened quietly when he and Spock talked about famous chess matches or discussed strategy. Not that her attention wandered—not at all. If anything, her silence seemed to help her focus on what truly interested her. As warm as her gaze was when she spoke to Chekov, she lit up when she and Spock talked to each other.

For long stretches the two of them would converse too quickly for Chekov to catch more than the bare essentials of what they were saying. Sitting side-by-side across from him in a booth in a dimly-lit pub, they did not touch or even look directly at each other.

But their body language gave them away. Perhaps because so many of their words were a mystery to him, Chekov stopped trying to listen and watched them instead. When Spock spoke, Uhura leaned fractionally closer, tilted her ear toward him, a slight crease between her brows in concentration, her hands fluttering together like birds.

By contrast, when she talked he lowered his chin and turned his shoulders toward her, almost protectively, his eyes focused on her profile, the rest of the world beyond his interest.

They were lovers, of course.

Only later did Chekov realize how odd that should have been.

Afterwards, he saw them together often. Spock arranged for him to sit another exam with the condition that he get his language skills up to par, setting up lab hours for him when he arrived in San Francisco to begin summer school classes. Uhura was his tutor but Spock usually dropped by the lab during a lesson. When he did, she beamed—and though Spock remained formal and somewhat distant with the other students, the tone of his voice softened almost imperceptibly when he spoke to Uhura.

"You're imagining things," Irina told him when he casually mentioned their affection. At the time it seemed like just another contrarian thing for Irina to say, something to get a rise out of him. When they were together now they were often prickly with each other, arguing over details that in retrospect were baffling.

"The Commander's too smart to get involved with one of his students," Irina said. "Maybe it's _you_ who has the crush on her."

Chekov denied it swiftly, furiously. Irina was just trying to pick a fight, to find a reason to break up.

But later when he had cooled off he knew it was a little bit true, that he spent far too much time gazing at Uhura when he should have been looking at the verb conjugations she showed him on the computer. A _crush_ —a perfect word in Standard. He wasn't in love with her, not in the obvious way the Commander was, but he was happier when he was with her than when he wasn't; he never tired of hearing her speak or watching her move. He carried the weight of his unrequited emotions in his chest, like a rock, like something crushing him.

In time his crush on Uhura lost its sharp edges and became an almost-pleasure, the sort of mild melancholy that his favorite Russian writers spent so much time describing. When he found that they were both assigned to the _Enterprise_ , he fancied himself a character in a story, doomed to never fall in love, condemned to watch The Woman He Loved from afar.

Nonsense, of course, but it helped him keep his feelings at bay.

At 1827 when Scotty says, "I've lost them," Chekov is sitting at the navigation console. His stomach lurches.

Almost at once his attention is diverted by the frantic calls from the surface of the planet. The energy wave had knocked the ship off course and he runs a diagnostic of the positioning sensors. By the time he is convinced the sensors match his own internal awareness of where the ship is in space, Scotty is back on the bridge, the words "transwarp beaming" coming out of his mouth.

It is the second big shock in a few minutes. Several times a week he meets with Scotty on his off hours to listen to the Scotsman prattle about the theory of transwarp beaming.

"It _is_ possible," Scotty insisted the first time he shared his vision, Chekov dismissing the idea. "You have to trust me on this one. Just start running the numbers for me, and one day you'll be a footnote in history."

The work over the past two months was slow and full of dead ends. But instead of being discouraged each time Chekov brought him another set of calculations, Scotty would nod slowly and say, "Aye. That eliminates that one. Now try this."

Not that Scotty has ever expressly sworn him to secrecy, but Chekov knows it is their project alone. Once he had been standing with Scotty in engineering tapping through several screens of his PADD when the Tureelian engineer, O'car'i, had wandered up and Scotty had fallen silent. As soon as O'car'i moved away, Scotty picked back up where he had left off, as if nothing had happened. The message was clear.

"No tests of transwarp beaming have ever been successful," Chekov hears the Vulcan ambassador say, and the captain hardly pauses before he says, "Oh, yes it has."

_You have to trust me on this one._

What hasn't Scotty told him?

Vaguely Chekov's aware that the officers are talking but his mind is racing ahead. If the energy pulse is, in fact, a transporter signal, then they have to locate either its origin or its destination before it fades. Either would do—the transporters at both ends should be able to retrieve a signal in transit.

Chekov quickly rules out getting to the origin of the signal. The earlier wave that shook the planet traveled at least ten parsecs. 30.2616326 light years away—even at warp three, the _Enterprise_ will arrive long after the transwarp signal has disappeared.

The destination, then. He pulls the Vulcan satellite data. The signal leaving the planet was less intense than the one arriving, bent at a 42 degree angle. Was New Vulcan being used as a way station? Or were the distant operators using the planet as a way to focus the beam, the way a prism could bend light?

On a second screen he calls up the nearby star charts and begins scanning for a possible final destination. Given the trajectory and the strength of the signal, the planet designated as MX18 looks most likely. He puts his finger on the blinking indicator and calls to the captain.

"This is where we should look," he says, knowing that the captain won't take the time to ask him why.

"Do it," Kirk says. "Mark the coordinates. Mr. Sulu, best speed."

Even with the inertial dampeners working, Chekov can sense the increased forward movement of the ship. The whine of the engine goes up in pitch, the vibration under his feet speeds up.

On the viewscreen New Vulcan looms up and veers away as the _Enterprise_ hurries after the rapidly fading signal. Chekov makes one adjustment to the course setting and sends it to Sulu's console.

The ship shudders into warp and the telltale streaks of light stream by. Chekov lets his fingers play over the screen, watching the transporter signal trace scroll past. In moments the signal doubles in strength.

"Arrival at MX18 in five, four, three, two, one!" Sulu intones.

The ship drops out of warp, the large brown and green planet filling the viewscreen.

"Open a hailing signal," Kirk says and Chekov hears Uhura's voice, surprisingly steady.

"This is the _USS Enterprise_ with an emergency request. Please respond."

Nothing but the soft hiss of static.

"Hail them again, Lieutenant."

"This is the _USS Enterprise_. Please respond."

Chekov glances over his shoulder and sees Uhura toggling switches and pressing her earpiece with the fingers of her right hand.

Suddenly the static changes into a high-pitched squeal and Uhura reaches forward to turn a knob and dampen the noise.

"Get that channel clear!" Kirk says.

"Captain," the science officer says from Commander Spock's station, "I'm not reading any life signs on the planet."

"Chekov! I thought this was where the transporter signal ended."

"It is, Keptin!"

Chekov knows he's right but he looks down at the numbers anyway. They don't lie. The signal came from here.

"Then where—"

Before Kirk can say anything else, Scotty says, "I'm reading an energy build up on the largest continent, bearing 203 mark 7. It could be the power source for a transporter."

Glancing down at his own monitor, Chekov confirms Scotty's observation. No life forms on the planet? An automated transport station?

"Captain! We're being hailed!"

Instantly the bridge falls silent and all eyes turn to Uhura.

Her brow is wrinkled in concentration, one hand cupped over her earpiece. As she looks up, the overhead lights flash so brightly that Chekov instinctively closes his eyes and shields his face with his forearm.

The lights dim as suddenly as they brightened and he opens his eyes. Glancing down at his monitor, he checks for an indication of an energy surge. There it is, a mere .2 joules less than he would have guessed.

"Uhura!" he hears the captain shout.

And just like that, Chekov knows that she's gone.

**A/N: Truly, we are almost there!**

**To everyone who has continued to read this little story, thank you.  
**

**Janna is a character in Chapter 7 of "People Will Say." Spock and Uhura's trip to the chess tournament in London is in Chapter 4 of "Crossing the Equator."**


	7. Uhura, 2317

**Chapter Seven: Uhura, 2317**

**Disclaimer: Something borrowed.**

A light on the communications console flashes.

"Captain, we're being hailed!"

Nyota toggles the switch with her right hand, her left hand pressed to the receiver in her ear.

Suddenly the overhead lights power up, so bright that she closes her eyes. Behind her eyelids she experiences a cascade of afterimages…sees the comm board, the captain gesturing from his chair….hears bits of language…muffled voices…feels an odd array of sensations, as if every nerve in her body flares briefly.

Grains of sand or ice whirl past her face and she opens her eyes hesitantly. Instead of being on the bridge of the _Enterprise_ , Nyota is sitting on a large rock outcropping in a hazy field. Her knees are tucked beneath her, her right hand outstretched, her left cupped around the receiver still in her ear. Pressing the activator button, she is startled at the sound of her own voice.

" _Enterprise_? Do you read me?"

Nothing. Not even any static.

She takes a breath and lets it out slowly, trying to still the panic that skitters at the edge of her consciousness. _A dream?_ Incredibly realistic if it is. The wind blowing sand or dust or ice crystals is cold and abrasive and steady. Looking around, she notes what looks like a large rounded hill in the distance.

 _A hallucination?_ Nyota runs her hands along the rock where she is sitting. The surface is oddly spongy and rough, like flexible pumice, and she presses her hands flat to steady herself as she stretches out her legs, dangles them over the side of the rock and slides, landing off-balance in soft green soil that is silky to her touch.

 _The planet below_ —suddenly she knows where she is. But how has she gotten here?

_You were trying to contact us.  
_

The thought flickers through her mind so quickly that she isn't sure if she actually hears the words or not. Pinpricks of light flicker across her field of vision and she winces before she can stop herself.

"Who are you?" Nyota calls into the unseen distance, feeling the answer more than hearing it.

_Travelers, as you are._

Taking a tentative step, Nyota pitches forward and has to catch herself to keep from falling.

"Where are you?"

Instantly she is flooded with warmth and she looks down expecting to see that she has stepped in some sort of fluid. A metallic taste washes through her mouth and for a moment she is so dizzy that she is afraid she might fall. From the corner of her eye she sees a shimmer of light, like an optical illusion that recedes in the desert. When she moves, it slips away. Her head begins to throb.

_Your body is adversely affected by our presence. We will return you to your vessel._

"No!" she says. "I'm…searching for someone. You may be able to help me."

_There is no one here but us._

The wind blowing across the landscape picks up and Nyota shivers uncontrollably.

"My ship," she says, " the vessel you took me from—"

_We brought you here to facilitate communication._

"I can hear you but I can't see you."

Nyota peers into the haze, watching for some motion. Her vision is limited to the large rock at her side and a few meters of soil around her. Glancing up, she is surprised that the sky is obscured by fog.

_It is not yet time to take on our corporeal forms. Soon. That is why we are here._

Lowering herself to the ground, Nyota says, "I don't understand."

_This mode of communication is tiring you. Perhaps we can try something else._

Nyota leans back against the rock and nods.

When she was a teenager, she sometimes suffered from migraines that bloomed behind her eyes and wrenched her stomach into knots. Her mother would dim the lights and sit at her bedside, stroking Nyota's brow until the medicine took over and eased the pain. This pain feels familiar.

_Close your eyes._

The voice is both gentle and commanding.

"How are we able to—"

_We scanned the data banks on your vessel so we could communicate with you. You do not need to speak to be understood._

"Then how—"

But suddenly she knows. The creatures who brought her here do not need words, do not use words with each other. An image of gold and white lights— _this is how we exist most of the time_ , she hears in her mind. _As energy, traveling from our home to other worlds._

 _Then why are you here? On this planet?_ she asks, and another image swirls in her thoughts, of the white and gold lights striking the green soil, tiny colored crystals rising up, tumbling in the wind and collecting in shallow pools, touching each other and reshaping themselves. Like watching a time-elapsed holovid, Nyota sees the crystals growing until they crack and burst and shoot into the atmosphere as beams of focused white and gold light.

She understands that this is the life cycle of these creatures.

 _So you come here to…procreate_ , she says, and she feels their amusement.

_In a sense. Here we take on substance and reconstitute ourselves. Without doing so, we would cease to exist after a time, our energy trace degrading, dissipating._

Her heart races.

 _This energy trace_ , she thinks, _is disrupting a planet near this system. One of my shipmates was hurt when you traveled there. We have tracked his…energy trace here. To this planet. And another shipmate is with him. They were traveling in a transporter beam when it was intercepted._

The wind soughs around the rock and Nyota tilts her head against it.

_There are no life forms in our energy trace. You are the only life form on this planet._

Opening her eyes in frustration, Nyota is instantly overwhelmed by another wave of nausea. The taste of iodine fills her mouth and she gags.

 _They don't have bodies as I do,_ she says. _Their molecules were disassembled when your…beam….took them—"_

She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. A vision of the transporter room swims up and she grabs onto it, knowing that the creatures find her account confusing.

 _Here,_ she thinks, giving a mental view of the six landing pads, Scotty sitting with his hands resting on the controls, Kirk bracing himself on the console with one hand, and herself and Sarek standing to the side, waiting for Spock and McCoy to materialize.

 _This is when they disappeared_ , she says, reliving the shaking of the ship, the shimmer on the pad fading into nothingness, Scotty's aggrieved, "I've lost them!" still causing her pain.

_Your shipmates are not alive._

"No!" she says aloud, the sound ricocheting in the air. "I know they are alive!"

The effort to speak exhausts her.

_The only living creature is this one._

They show her Sarek—his eyes darker than Spock's, his expression more difficult to read.

_This one is alive, as are you. But we sense no one else on your vessel or in this place._

Is it possible that something catastrophic has happened to the _Enterprise_ —that through some terrible accident she has been brought here instead of suffering the fate of the crew?

As if to answer her question, the creatures show her the ship—the running lights blinking against the black sky, the hull gleaming dully in the light of the nearest star.

 _The crew?_ she asks, and suddenly she can see the people inside, almost as if through a glass wall, walking down the corridors, manning their stations.

 _There are over 400 life forms inside_ , she says, an idea already niggling in one corner of her brain. _Why did you say that Sarek—that this one—is the only one alive?_

The voice takes on a quizzical tone. _  
_

_These others are life forms? But they are not truly sentient. Their awareness extends no further than themselves._

"I don't understand," Nyota says aloud, partly to reassure herself that she can. But even as she says it, she realizes that she does understand, that the mysterious mental connection she feels with Spock connects her to Sarek, too, in a way that she hasn't realized before.

She calls up an image of Spock and says, "I know that this one is alive. He's hurt, and he may not be able to respond, but I would know if he had…ceased to exist. And Sarek would know, too. This form of….communication….it is typical of their species, and apparently yours. The other life forms on the ship do not communicate this way, but they are sentient."

_Our definition of life differs from yours._

For a moment she is flummoxed—though in retrospect she thinks she shouldn't have been. Even humans have disagreed for centuries about how to define life and sentience. Self-awareness? The ability to reason? To feel pain and pleasure?

Apparently these creatures factor in telepathic communication as part of the equation.

"But now that you know—"

Before she can finish, she senses the creatures refining their search, gleaning their energy trace for the inevitable residue and debris they accumulate in their travels among the stars—debris that includes an interrupted transporter beam.

_The two you are searching for are here._

Opening her eyes, Nyota forces herself to her feet, one hand extended to the rock to balance herself.

"Where—"

_Their forms are present in our energy matrix._

"Then you can return them to the ship!"

_We cannot. If we expend the energy to return them, we will not have sufficient energy to take on substance and reconstitute ourselves. We will cease to exist._

"They will cease to exist if you don't!"

For the first time since Spock disappeared, she begins to feel genuine panic. The creatures have nothing to gain and everything to lose by diverting their energy beam to send McCoy and Spock to the _Enterprise_. Scrambling to think what to say to convince them, she has a sudden heartfelt desire for Jim Kirk's help. If anyone can talk his way out of trouble, it's the captain.

But he's not here—indeed, the creatures might ignore anything the captain might say since they don't recognize him as a sentient creature.

And that thought gives her the idea she needs.

"Why are you here?"

_We told you. We come here to assume the necessary form to continue our existence._

"But why do you wish to continue your existence?"

_All living things wish to continue._

"Even if you cause others to cease so you can continue?"

Once in an Academy class on ethics, Nyota had heard an attorney address the cadets and ask this question—or a form of it.

"Is your life worth more than someone else's?"

The attorney was young and self-assured, a handsome man with short dark hair and a prim manner. When someone in the back of the lecture hall raised his hand, the attorney swiveled on his heel with a hint of impatience.

"If we don't believe that the lives of our shipmates are worth dying for, then we shouldn't be in Starfleet," the cadet said, and the attorney nodded.

"Agreed. But are they worth killing for?"

"Of course," the cadet answered, and Nyota found herself nodding along with everyone else.

But later in a private moment in her room she felt a tremor of squeamishness at the thought of having to kill someone. Could she? She was trained to do what was necessary. They all were. But it would take a toll on her—she wasn't so naïve that she didn't believe that.

Right now she hopes the creatures feel the same way.

"If you don't return them, my shipmates will cease to exist through no fault of their own. They are trapped in your energy matrix because you interrupted their transport signal. You have a responsibility to restore them as they were."

The warmth and saltiness she associates with the nearness of the creatures makes her gag again. Closing her eyes, she leans her head against the rock. No words come to her but she feels a wave of emotion that she knows is not her own—regret and sorrow.

She's reaching them.

Or so she thinks, until the voice says, _That they must cease to exist is unfortunate. But we are many and they are few._

Nyota stifles a scream. She could be arguing with a Vulcan.

"But you are hurting many! Not just these two, but in the path you take to get here! You are damaging the sentient beings who live on the planet where he is from."

Broadcasting an image of Sarek first and then New Vulcan—the way she last saw it on the viewscreen—Nyota waits for the creatures to move close again and is not disappointed. A spasm of nausea, a flush along her neck and face, and she knows she is understood.

_We have used that planet as a way station for millennia. No one lives there._

"No one lived there until a few months ago. If you scanned our data banks, you know about the Vulcan genocide and the survivors' efforts to establish a colony. Your energy beams are disrupting life on that colony."

More regret—and shame.

_We did not know. We would never intentionally harm anyone. It is contrary to our ethos._

This time the sorrow is Nyota's. She shivers again, and not just from the cold.

"Are you the only ones—"

_There are others on our homeworld who are not yet ready to travel to this place. They will be warned not to touch the colony world on their way._

Is it her imagination, or does the voice sigh?

"Perhaps you will not cease to exist—"

But even as she says it, she knows it isn't true, that it is as shallow as the comfort she gave herself when she didn't want to believe something upsetting as a child.

"Lieutenant!"

The captain's voice. She opens her eyes and is dizzy, this time with relief. Back on the bridge, back in her chair, the communications panels arrayed before her—she glances around quickly and sees Jim Kirk leaping toward her.

"What happened?"

Opening her mouth to answer, she hears the Tureelian engineer, O'car'i, over the intercom.

"Transporter room to captain! We've got them! Dr. McCoy and Commander Spock just materialized!"

X

Spock isn't the only Vulcan in sickbay. Because the medical facilities on New Vulcan were badly damaged in the last quake, several colonists with injuries more severe than broken bones or bad sprains are resting on the biobeds. Most are asleep or sedated, and the overhead lights have been dimmed for ship's "night."

To afford Spock more privacy, McCoy has pulled the curtains around his bed, leaving just enough room for Nyota to set a chair at his side. Since being beamed aboard, Spock hasn't regained consciousness, though Nyota feels certain that he knows she is here now, resting her head against the back of her chair, letting herself be lulled by the steady whir of the air exchanger punctuated by the occasional beeps of the sensors.

Her eyes are closing. It's been a long day, and she isn't 100% sure that McCoy didn't slip her something to help her sleep when she steadfastly refused to leave.

"There's nothing you can do here," the doctor had protested, but she silenced him with a look.

A rustle at her back—McCoy returning?—and Nyota sits up abruptly. Before she turns around, she already knows who she will see there.

"Ambassador," she says, starting to rise, and Sarek extends his hand, palm down, and motions for her to sit. She does, gratefully.

"Dr. McCoy says he's in a healing trance," she says, realizing too late that Sarek knows this. Chalk it up to her exhaustion that she would state the obvious to a Vulcan.

But Sarek surprises her by nodding and saying, "Thank you."

For a moment they look at each other and then Nyota breaks the silence.

"Would you care to sit down?"

Again he surprises her, this time by stepping around the biobed and grasping the back of the empty chair on the other side. He swings it around, setting it a few feet from Nyota, lowering himself into it more gracefully than most men his size.

Like his son, Nyota thinks. Feline in their movements.

"Thank you," Sarek says again, "for bringing him home."

The unexpected tenderness of his tone makes tears spring to her eyes. She bobs her head, unable to meet his gaze.

"It wasn't me," she says, her voice hitching, a sob threatening to break the surface. "The creatures. They sacrificed themselves—"

"I saw," Sarek says. Of course he did. Through that…bond…or whatever it is. She darts a glance and nods.

"The last time we spoke—" Sarek begins, and Nyota feels her cheeks flush. She had yelled at him, mere days after the _Enterprise_ had limped home after the loss of Vulcan—had told him that he didn't understand grief or loss or love—words calculated to hurt him, to punish him for pressuring Spock to resign his commission and join the colony.

"Please, Ambassador," she says, looking up into his eyes, "I was wrong to speak to you as I did. I was…angry, and I lost control—"

"The anger was justified," Sarek says, not unkindly. "And control can be overplayed."

He folds his hands in front of him and Nyota hears him let out a breath.

"I believed at the time that Spock's decision to remain in Starfleet ill-advised," he says, and Nyota flushes again. "I may have been mistaken."

Sarek peers at her with his dark, impenetrable eyes, so black that she once said he looked reptilian. It was, she realizes now, an ungenerous characterization. His recent suffering has stamped lines on his brow, has made his expression less certain, more wary, even weary.

"Thank you," she says, recognizing the meaning behind his words. He's offering her a benediction, making a place for her in that corner of his mind where his thoughts dwell with his son.

She's not quite there yet. She and Spock are heading in that direction, she's certain. But the losses are still too many, too new, to think that far ahead. Eventually. She can wait.

Like she will wait here for the rest of the night, and for the next twenty-four hours if she needs to, and the twenty-four hours after that, until Spock opens his eyes and speaks her name.

**A/N: The End! Voila! If you enjoyed this ride, or even if you didn't, let me know! It's always sad for an author to end a story and lose that connection with readers. Thanks to everyone who stayed onboard and read—and a special thanks to those brave souls who took the time to leave a comment or kudo.  
**

**In my little timeline, this story immediately precedes "Once and Future," the story where Spock and Nyota finally make their bond official.**


End file.
